Project Survival
by A.J Scarlet
Summary: Awakening in a familiar drug room she finds herself involuntarily set up by an unknown entity to fight for her life. The main objective: Escape from Spencer's Mansion. Determined to find answers she and the other victims play the twisted game of life and death. Luckily she runs into some familiar faces. The events of this night will ripple forever in the hapless victim's lives.


**Chapter 1: Enter The Survival Horror**

Fluorescent lights bleed through my eyelids, sending white beams of artificial light to engulf the dark of some dreamless sleep. The beams grab a hold of my consciousness, pulls against my will to remain in a dim, uncomplicated slumber. I open my eyes to a pounding headache and find myself in an eerily familiar room. Cold air seeps through the thin cotton of my wine colored tee as I sit up on the bed. My skin puckers and I spot my brown leather jacket hanging from a wooden chair. Great, my day had gone to hell.

I swing my legs over the side of the bed and stand slowly, my head swims and blurs my vision if I move too quickly. As I stumble towards the chair my throat burns with every breath. A sweet, antiseptic smell lingers in the back of my throat. Before my legs give out I lunge towards the chair. Raspy, chill inducing screeching of wood scraping wood grates at my ears and I drape my hand over my chest. My heart races irregularly and I close my eyes, breathe deep to calm my senses.

Feeling better, well at least physically stable, I notice a familiar typewriter on the desk in front of me as I shrug into my jacket. The walls are plain white with wood molding, a wood bookcase stands directly behind me, a shelf stocked with jars and vials across the bookcase, and a large, faded red trunk by the only door in the room. As realization sinks my insides flush cold as if I had swallowed ice water and it permeated under my skin. The room looks close to the mansion drug room from Resident Evil if not an exact replica. What kind of sick joke was this?!

I rush to the trunk, the heavy lid creaks at its hinges. My tiny, black leather back bag was placed neatly inside along with a holster you strap around your waist and thighs. I take all of that crap out of the trunk and set it neatly on the bed. For a while I just stare at the supplies, what was I doing in a room I didn't recognize -sort of- and what was all the supplies for? I scrounge through my bag, all the stuff I would normally have in there was replaced with a shit ton of ammo and a gold key with a sword engraved on its head. Suddenly there's a loud beep.

Startled, I accidentally drop the bag. I take a deep breath of stale, moldy air to settle my pounding heart. The beeping persisted, so I pick up my bag and go through the side pockets. A slim, black plastic thing that reminds me of a compact for blush beeps. Turning the smooth compact in my hand I eventually swallow the dread forming into a lump in my throat and open it. Where there should've been a mirror is a digital screen. A green audiograph runs across the screen then spikes once a voice emanates from the device.

"You're finally awake, Ms. Vega. Good. I advise you to wear the gear I have supplied you with as it will be essential to your survival."

I blink, the voice unfortunately is scrambled so I have no way of recognizing it. "Survival? What's going on? How did I get here?"

"We have no time for that. Your priority should be to escape this mansion."

"What? Why?"

"You want to live do you not? The mansion is overrun with dangerous Bio organic weaponry, they are highly infectious so do avoid injury. If you wish to know the answers to your questions I suggest you get out intact." The digital screen goes black and I shove it into my left jean pocket.

Looked like I had no other choice but to play along. I wasn't stupid, the voice on the other side of the communicator was obviously in charge and testing me to see if I could survive whatever the person cooked up. Yeah, the day had most definitely gone to shit. Fine, if they wanted to play games then I'd play along. Little did I know the game of life and death would change the reason for my existence forever.

I set up like the voice had asked, clip the magazines of ammo along the belt of my holster and check if there's a bullet in the chamber of my gun. Honestly I had never fired a gun in my life, unless water guns and arcade pistols counted. Any knowledge of guns I had came from television.

I grip the gun tightly and hold it at shoulder level. As expected, much to my chagrin, the door leads out to a very familiar hall. A set of stairs faces the wall to my right and the hall wraps around in a sort of 'L' shape. Seriously what was the point of ripping off the design of a fictional mansion? Better yet, what was the point of kidnapping me only to set me loose with weapons?

So, because the mansion strikes an uncanny resemblance to the Spencer mansion, I walk down the hall to find the broken shotgun. If I was going to survive I was going to need some serious fire power aside from a handgun. My footfalls thud hollowly against the hardwood much like in the games as I traipse along the hall. I can't contain my limbs from trembling as my gut tightens in terrified anticipation. The dark door appears to my right as expected. I jiggle the doorknob to the second room in the hall, locked.

Unfortunately I don't have a lock pick on me, not that I knew how to use one anyways. I pull out the knife from the sheath on my left thigh, slide the blade between the bolt and doorframe, and jiggle the knob until the locking mechanism springs loose. The tiny, dimly lit room is stuffed with a desk and other useless furniture covered in dusty cobwebs. I grab a battery pack, drop it into my bag quickly, and strap the broken shotgun to my back.

As I walk down the hall towards the stairs a miserable moan reverberates off the cracked walls. My whole body shakes and I stop before rounding the corner. There was no way I could deal with this crap. I was just some poor excuse of an editor that lived with her brother and his wife. Sure I had an obsession with zombie themed games and movies, acquired useless knowledge about them over the years, but if I was to run into an actual reanimated corpse I'd run in the other direction scared out of my damn mind. Why was _I_ chosen to participate? And how? Last thing I remembered I was walking to the train station on my way home after plowing through a stack of manuscripts.

Suddenly a flash of white blinds me accompanied with a stabbing pain in my head. I nearly fall on my ass. I grip the smooth wall to steady myself and press against the sharp pain at my temples. All right, so _that_ was a bad idea.

Morose, ungodly moaning approaches down the hall and my stomach tightens. He's getting closer. I raise the handgun and swallow hard before stepping around the corner. A feral snarl slips through rotting teeth and my first zombie of the night rushes towards me like a starving attack dog. He leaps just as lightning whips across the night sky beyond a dusty window. Thunder cracks. I close my eyes and squeeze the trigger.

An earsplitting shriek escapes from my mouth when my petrified body met with an unstoppable force. Pain ripples across my back and a frigid stab of panic electrocutes my nerves when I fall back to the floor. I quickly shove the heavy zombie off me and slide myself back away from him in an ungraceful flurry of flailing limbs. Once the back of my head bumps into the wall I realize my shot miraculously went through his head. That was lucky.

Blood pools to the hardwood floor around him from the gaping hole my bullet left in its wake. After my heartbeat decides to settle down I use the wall to help me stand and step towards the corpse. Something's off. Victims of the Tyrant Virus usually suffered from accelerated decomposition, but this guy's flesh is more or less intact. He's disheveled and there are a few chunks of muscle missing from his forearms but all he seems to suffer from is greyed skin and an insatiable appetite.

I continue down the hall. The stairs creak under my weight as I climb, slowly. My heart pounds against my chest like a rabid animal trying to break free. In fear of what I don't want to see I focus on the careful steps I take up the stairs, and just as I take my fifth step there's a shuffling noise that sends a cold feeling to my gut. My skin puckers as the cold sensation spread across my body and I notice an odd smell.

It smells of decay. The noises are unmistakably from dragging feet, and then a moan practically glues me to the stairs for a moment. I gather my wits, I'd try to grow some balls too but that'd be strange considering I'm female, and continue up the rest of the stairs. I turn quickly. My heart can't decide whether to stop beating or race faster. He was torn, chunks of flesh missing, his clothes soaked in blood and tattered.

For a moment he walks awkwardly along, looks like he's actually bored, until he stops moving. His head turns slowly towards me, the flesh cause nauseating squelching, and locks his eyes on me. Oh no, now I see.

T-virus zombies often had a sick milky or ice blue discoloration to the eyes. This one has pale yellow eyes with a red ring on the outer edge of the iris. The T-virus was not responsible for this one's death. He runs for a brief moment to round the corner of the railing, and I back myself up against the wall in fright. As he shuffles deliberately towards me I raise my gun towards his head, my arms shake. A few more deliberate steps and he runs straightaway.

I shoot. His body falls to my feet, and I jump back unable to press myself further against the wall. Coagulated blood, brain, and bone matter splatter along the carpet and white walls. He's a C-virus zombie, much more dangerous than his T-virus counterparts. Well, I was fucked.

I completely bypass the metal door and walk out to the balcony over the dinning room. Two more zombies notice my presence and swivel towards me. I jog around them, shriek when one pounced and I manage to duck out of the way in time. He hit the wall hard and I rush to the double doors. I close my eyes, struggle to calm my pulse as it thunders behind my ears. Fucking hell, I needed to pull myself together quickly. Then something occurred to me. This Mansion was obviously enormous, was it possible I wasn't the only living person in it?

I go around the balcony and down the grand staircase to the main hall, a gun shot pierces the silence. That answered my question. I rush through the double doors to the dinning room, run beside the large dinning table, and slowly open the door to what I call Kenneth's Hall in the game. The hall's completely dark and only lights up when lightning flashes across the sky. I blink. I don't remember Kenneth's hall having windows in the game. Another shot goes off and I rush towards the offshoot at the end of the hall. What I found both bothered and eased me.

**A/n: So this is what happens when I listen to RE soundtrack music lol. Okay so this is a more serious approach to RE. I want to make something with a more real feel, as real as a zombie centered story can be anyways, and with more sensory stimulation. I'm not sure how smooth this is yet so going back to edit is a definite lol. Hope you like.**


End file.
